BASIC RULES
- Touches scored: only by thrusting
- Special rule: right of way – if both fencers hit each other at the same time, the fencer with the initiative (the one who is going forward or makes contact with the blade) gets the touch
- Target zone: the torso (including back)
ESSENTIAL ACTIONS
Important: Colored lights (red and/or green) indicate a valid touch. White lights indicate the touch was off target, which means no points are awarded.
One-light-actions: First things first. One-light actions are pretty easy to understand: whoever scores gets the point. But, it’s helpful to see how these actions look like before adding more complexity.
- Straight attack: the most basic offensive action
- Parry-riposte: a defensive action. Massialas (right) is the one to start the attack. However, Ota (left) blocks that attack, and then he scores. The action of blocking your opponent’s attack with your blade is called a “parry,” and hitting your opponent right after your opponent finishes an offensive action is called a “riposte.” Therefore, blocking your opponent’s attack and then hitting is called a “parry-riposte”
- Counterattack: a defensive action. Meinhardt (right) scores on Ota’s (left) attack. If Ota had also scored, it would’ve been his touch because Ota was going forward (Ota had the right-of-way). Therefore, in order to score on a counterattack, you must have a single light.
Two-light actions: Now it’s time to understand actions when two lights go off (whether it is red and green; red and white; green and white; etc).
Remember: In foil, there is right-of-way. This means that when both fencers hit each other at the same time, the fencer with the initiative (the one who is going forward OR makes contact with the blade) gets the touch.
Examples of right of way:
- Attack against counterattack: even though both fencers hit each other, the touch is awarded to Garozzo (left) because he was attacking (Garozzo had the initiative because he was going forward).
- Parry-riposte against remise: even though both fencers hit each other, the touch is awarded to Ota (right) because he blocked Joppich’s (left) first offensive action. In other words, Joppich lost his right-of-way after missing his first attack. So, even though Joppich hit on his continuation of the attack (which is called a “remise”), it was now Ota’s right-of-way.
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